THINK DIFFERENTLY - TEACH DIFFERENTLY
Using Social Media to better Engage Students in the Educational Experience
What is Facebook?
Many teachers have been hesitant to use Facebook in the
learning environment, given their inherent risk of exposing students to
inappropriate content.
Of all the social media sites, Facebook’s place is at the top (It is only rivalled by Google). There are 900 million active users on Facebook (as of May 2012) — many of whom are our students. Those numbers translate into a recognition that most people are familiar with the platform and use it on a regular basis. Therefore, information and discussion delivered through it has a higher chance of being seen.
What is Facebook Best Used for?
You are probably most familiar with the personal side of Facebook. These Facebook pages, or profiles as they are known, are meant to represent a single individual. Organizations (including courses) of any type do not create profiles, rather they create Facebook Pages. These Pages are distinct presences, separate from user profiles, and are designed to communicate, distribute information/content, and engage users. Facebook Pages are designed to be a media rich and content rich so as to develop a stronger relationship with the user (student).
The process to set up a course page is quite simple. Once you have the page setup you need to invite your students to join it. Once they join, every update and addition that you make to the course page, be it text, pictures or links, will appear on their personal Facebook feed.
Using Facebook
The following video gives a good overview on how to create a Facebook Page:
The screen captures below will lead you through the steps of the Facebook page creation process. You can then tailor the page to meet your course requirements.
Setting up a course or subject area Facebook Course page is relatively simple to do. First we need to set up a Facebook page for your course. The process is outlined below:
Go to facebook.com/pages and click “Create Page” in the upper right hand corner.
This next screen asks you to select a category from the following list:
- Local Business or Place
- Company, Organization or Institution
- Brand or Product
- Artist, Band or Public Figure
- Entertainment
- Cause or Community
Once you select the category for your business, you can fill in the name, address and phone number. Check the box next to “I agree to Facebook Pages Terms” and click “Get Started.”
You can use a picture or develop a graphic that you then save as a .jpg file. Here's an example of one I created (using Powerpoint and then saving the slide as a .jpg) to upload a picture for your page. A Picture can be a logo, a photo of a store or a photo of a person — whatever makes the most sense for building your brand. The file needs to be smaller than 4MB, and it can be square or a vertical rectangle. However, note that the avatar that shows up next to status updates and wall posts is square, so if you don’t want anything chopped off, square might be the way to go.
A Vanity Address is a "simple address" that is added to the basic Facebook web address e.g.: www.facebook.com/coursename By doing this the site is much easier for you students to find and access.
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |